View Poll Results: Are you interested in learning Ethical Hacking?

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  • Yes

    19 65.52%
  • No

    10 34.48%
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Thread: Ethical Hacking

  1. #1

    Ethical Hacking

    Hello!

    I just wanted to have a small survey regarding a development we are planning.

    NASSCOM has predicted a demand of 188,000 Security professionals by 2008.

    Would you be interested in learning about Information Security & Ethical Hacking through professional Distance Learning courses to make a career in the field?

    If yes, How much do you think should be the price for a distance learning program which teaches you ethical hacking?

    This course will have 22 chapters covering everything from enumeration to SQL Injection, Social Engineering etc and the course will be certified by a couple of International organisations aswell. By the end of the course, you will be able to do the following:
    - Penetration Tests
    - Network Audits - Routers, Switchs, Firewalls, IDS etc
    - Vulnerability scanning and assessment of servers & network components.

    Your replies are highly appreciated.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    4,345
    I would.

    Couple of years ago when I wanted to become a hacker I read everywhere and was told that I need programming and networking knowledge.

    I am still at the programming field.

    I read some books about hacking once a while, but to have a professional course would be great (as long as financial aid pays for it).

    Peace,
    Testing 1.. Testing 1..2.. Testing 1..2..3...

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by azizny
    I would.

    Couple of years ago when I wanted to become a hacker I read everywhere and was told that I need programming and networking knowledge.

    I am still at the programming field.

    I read some books about hacking once a while, but to have a professional course would be great (as long as financial aid pays for it).

    Peace,
    Thanks a lot for your input.

    What do you think should be the cost?

    Being a private organisation, we do have a profit motive. However, Im sure we would be able to sell the course at a very affordable price (which doesn't mean that the course is not professional or does not have indepth details).

    The reason for the low cost will be our low expenses. The course being prepared by a team of 11 members who have expierence of 8-9 years on average. 4 of them are from IIT and one is from MIT as far as I know. Development activities are going on in India which is why our expenses would be low.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Albany, New York
    Posts
    3,026
    I'm not sure about a price...

    But, I am interested in the course. Keep me updated please.

  5. #5
    Probably a few hundred. Maybe $199 or so.

    I would suggest offering the first chapter or two for free as a "teaser" to purchase the rest of the course.
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  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Carp
    I'm not sure about a price...

    But, I am interested in the course. Keep me updated please.
    Thanks for your interest. I'll keep you updated.

    Quote Originally Posted by mrzippy
    I would suggest offering the first chapter or two for free as a "teaser" to purchase the rest of the course.
    Yes, we were already planning to launch such a demo. It would even help the people in making a decision who are not sure about the quality of the course.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Victoria, Australia
    Posts
    36,941
    Are you Tamranda? He posted an identical thread at FWS.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by anon-e-mouse
    Are you Tamranda? He posted an identical thread at FWS.
    I belive you are talking about Ankit? He is the owner of Tamranda.

    I asked him to take a survey where possible so it must be him.
    He is also involved in the venture but I am the Sales & Marketing Manager.

  9. #9
    Hey,

    Sorry I just realised the meaning of FWS as FreeWebspace.

    Ankit was the one who told me about that forum and It was me only who posted the thread there using his account.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Posts
    523
    I don't think that any person can be strictly trained towards ethical hacking. It's very abstract and goes many ways - the idea is to get the components separately, know the details, and then come up with your own ideas. By training someone towards ethical hacking / security, they will only know the slight bit of details needed for that part. It's similar to giving someone a course in all aspects of web hosting - the whole subject is too broad.

    In any case, I answered no: I'm already learning all the components by myself and don't think such a course would really help me. If a course is titled "ethical hacking", you're still likely to get unethical people to take the course and use it for unethical means.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by excelblue
    I don't think that any person can be strictly trained towards ethical hacking. It's very abstract and goes many ways - the idea is to get the components separately, know the details, and then come up with your own ideas. By training someone towards ethical hacking / security, they will only know the slight bit of details needed for that part. It's similar to giving someone a course in all aspects of web hosting - the whole subject is too broad.
    I understand what you mean, our aim has always been to give as much details as possible about every topic related to hacking. Just like there is no such thing as 100% security, there is no course which gives 100% knowledge or complete knowledge about the subject. Infact, the field is developing so fast that even if you try to include everything about every topic of hacking, by the time you finish making the course, the field of hacking would be completely changed.


    Quote Originally Posted by excelblue
    If a course is titled "ethical hacking", you're still likely to get unethical people to take the course and use it for unethical means.
    We are trying to make it a course for professionals. Infact the first chapter of the course is 'Legality'. But at the end of the day your statement is very true but one has to live with it.
    Crackers have this knowledge which they use for unethical purposes, we are teaching ethical hacking to people so that they can join in the force to stop the bad guys. Atleast we expect that to happen. Most of the ethical hackers are taken in the corporate sector so that they defend the corporate networks and at a macro level this saves the world from a lot of damage.

    The closest example I can find is that - You are not teaching Cops to use a gun because they might use that knowledge to kill good people. If it is done so, they would be helpless against the bad guys.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Canada
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    9,072
    ... just curious, do you have a CISSP certificate?

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Pat H
    ... just curious, do you have a CISSP certificate?
    Personally, No. I dont know a lot about the security field.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    UK
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    2,569
    what can you teach that i cant read in a any number of books? (ie the hacking exposed series)

    whats your target audience? someone who's been using *nix for a few years and wants to take it to the next step? someone who's a networking expert and wants to learn about host security? or a security guard that wants to take the knowledge he's learnt irl and transfer it to the online world?

    excuse me for being cynical, but for say $200 i could buy about 10 very very good books, and learn about a wider breadth of material (i probably already own those 10 books, but theres a lot out there) - whats your angle that'll make it worth spending that cash?

  15. #15
    I know basics, but nowhere near enough to do any decent security hardening, so my answer is yes.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Slidey
    what can you teach that i cant read in a any number of books? (ie the hacking exposed series)

    whats your target audience? someone who's been using *nix for a few years and wants to take it to the next step? someone who's a networking expert and wants to learn about host security? or a security guard that wants to take the knowledge he's learnt irl and transfer it to the online world?

    excuse me for being cynical, but for say $200 i could buy about 10 very very good books, and learn about a wider breadth of material (i probably already own those 10 books, but theres a lot out there) - whats your angle that'll make it worth spending that cash?
    Our mission is to fill that gap of 1,88,000 security professionals which would be required by 2008. We have already got a few recuritment partners even before the course has begun.

    Reading books can give you knowledge but not certification.

    Actully, we have two departments, one is for distance learning and the other one for classroom learning. For distance learning, our target audience would be a person who has working knowledge about networking, basic programming knowledge. Thats it.

    I never said that the price will be $200 but please keep in mind it would include a lot more then what a book includes. Book is made out of paper, while developing such courses requires programmers, developers. Printing of certificates, online examination, support (you wont get that with a book) & a lot more. Im not trying to prove here if Virtual classroom programmes are better then books or not, I leave that for the customer to decide but all im trying to say is that it invloves more cost then printing a book and hence the price is higher. Although, I belive such interactive courses are much easy to understand and learn from.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
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    Cheltenham
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    i would be interested but that would really depend on the context. For example if you are going to set out logical progresion with associated media then yes. However if its just going to be a read this, read that then i can learn that from books.
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  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by thebyp2
    i would be interested but that would really depend on the context. For example if you are going to set out logical progresion with associated media then yes. However if its just going to be a read this, read that then i can learn that from books.
    Quite Correct. This was something which we always kept in mind while making the course. I keep using the word interactive since its not going to be a reading course. It would have videos, demonstrations, presentations etc and games too. Yes, games related to hacking.

  19. #19
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    Apr 2003
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    UK
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    my personal opinion is that the field is too large and varied, and that you'll only teach people to be newbies - you can teach someone how to be a sysadmin for example, but until they've got 1,5,10 years experience what good are they going to be ?

    again i know it sounds like im disparaging you/your business when you're looking for advice/peoples opinions, but my personal opinion is that you cant just 'teach security' - its a process based almost as much on anecdotes and experience as the actual facts/information.. teaching someone stuff as varied as C coding, cryptography, packet filtering, os internals or the actual tools, let alone the social side of things - if you were teaching the equivalent of a degree on this stuff you might be able to cram it all in in 3 years, by which point half would be redundant anyway as the industry moves forward so quickly

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Albany, New York
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    I know vary little able Linux.

    Actually, I really dont know anything at all.

    I've successfully installed PHP, MySQL, Apache, and Asterisk and use "vi" on a daily basis. That about it.

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Slidey
    my personal opinion is that the field is too large and varied, and that you'll only teach people to be newbies - you can teach someone how to be a sysadmin for example, but until they've got 1,5,10 years experience what good are they going to be ?
    Experience is no dought very very important but we will be teaching as much as we can about the different fields/methods of ethical hacking. There is also a base required for gaining experience without which you cant even start getting experience. What im trying to say is that you would hardly get any experience if given a SSH terminal to experiment with, and you dont know what SSH is or linux is.
    It doesn't mean that we will be only teaching the basics.

    Another thing I wanted to tell is that we are not teaching someone to be a security guru and you wont be able to find new vuln. after doing this course. In order to do that, one needs immense dedication and quite a lot of experience.

    However, just like what i said in the first post, a normal student should be able to do the following after doing our course:
    - Penetration Tests
    - Network Audits - Routers, Switchs, Firewalls, IDS etc
    - Vulnerability scanning and assessment of servers & network components.

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Boston, Mass
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    11
    I'd be interested in seeing the entire course layout. How will you filter
    the intent of people who purchase the course?
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